


Press Play

by Hellokaelyn



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 07:30:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18331454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellokaelyn/pseuds/Hellokaelyn
Summary: “It’s been six months.” Nick said, his voice cracking, something that was common lately. It was as if his voice was slowly fading, dying, wasting away.“I know. She wouldn’t want you going on like this.”He knew. God did he know.





	Press Play

Closing his eyes he took a deep breath. 

He pressed play.

_ There’s so many things I want to say but I feel as if I’d never have enough time in the world. _

Staring up at his living room ceiling, he let her voice flow through his ears, hitting his heart. Slowly he let his eyes drift shut.  
  


 

_ From the beginning you were this puzzle I wanted to solve, this code I wanted to crack. When I finally did..it seemed as if the pieces just fell together.  _

It was late at night with the darkness coming in through the large windows, the orange walls dark with an eerie look to them. 

“Torres?” 

Gibbs walked up beside him where he stood looking down at her desk. 

“You should go home.” Gibbs’ voice was soft, a tone he had taken on often in the past months. “Get some sleep.”

He almost scoffed at that. Before all this he barely slept, now he was lucky if he got an hour of peaceful sleep. 

“It’s been six months.” Nick said, his voice cracking, something that was common lately. It was as if his voice was slowly fading, dying, wasting away. 

“I know. She wouldn’t want you going on like this.”

He knew. God did he know. If she knew how little he ate, how he barely slept, how he shaved as little as possible too busy spending all his free time searching for her, if she knew how Nick Torres who once took pride in his appearance had sunk so low..she’d give him a good chewing out and ass kicking because while she acted as if his vainness irritated her, it was one of the things she loved. Nick’s self-esteem and confidence in return boosted hers she had once said. 

But she wasn’t  _ here _ . 

“Yeah well, she’s not here now is she?” He snapped. 

“We haven’t stopped looking for her Nick.”

“I know.” Reaching into his bag, he took a paper out and walked over to Gibbs’ desk, placing it down. “But there’s only so much time you can spend looking when working here, especially with the crazy case load lately.” 

Gibbs stared at the papers and then back to him. “Are you sure you wanna do that?”

Nick knew what Gibbs was worried about. That if he didn’t have the responsibility of coming into work he’d fall deeper into the hole he was making for himself. It was probably true, but he couldn’t do this anymore. 

“Yes.”

He said nothing more as he walked past Gibbs. 

It was time to invest all his time in finding her.

He’d find Ellie no matter what. 

Dead or alive.

_ That night after the adventure of Charlie and Luis ended and I stepped onto that elevator, you don’t know how hard it was to not get right off and kiss you again. To see if I felt that tingle go through me again. It changed everything between us. _

  
  


Nick paced the spare bedroom in his apartment that was once a small in-home gym, but now the walls looked like an evidence board covered in paper. Notes, pictures, string throughout connecting things together. 

It was a lot, but not  _ enough _ . 

Six months ago Ellie seemed to just vanish. No evidence at all pointing to her being taken, the only thing she left behind being a delayed email to Nick with a voice recording meant just for him but nothing in it hinted to where she would be. He had listened to it enough times to know.

She was last seen the day before at work. Nick felt as if that last moment of seeing her haunted him.

He had made some joke picking on McGee and Ellie had threw her head back in laughter, her laugh ringing through his ears and the large smile on her face constantly flashing behind his eyes. 

Tears filled his eyes. 

“Fuck!” He shouted, sweeping his arm along and knocking the lamp off the desk making it fall to the floor with a shatter. Darkness filled the room. 

A sob tore through the dark.

_ Time went by and we grew closer. As friends and towards something more. You always say you’re not good with emotions, not good at touchy feely things but when Clay died..you were the only one I could stand being around for the longest time. You didn’t try to get me to talk, didn’t expect me to listen while you talked, there were no pity looks or I wishes or what ifs, it was just us sitting on my couch drinking beer and watching the stupidest movies known to man. Ones that would have made Clay make jokes about us ‘American’s’, and insist that we watch some of the classics instead of whatever supposed ‘rubbish’ we were watching. Then we had our unplugged trip and I had to try hard not to lean over and kiss you, or demand that you kiss me. That trip was where everything truly began.  _  
  
  


 

He heard the knocking at the door but ignored it. Just like he ignored his phone ringing from everyone to Gibbs and McGee to Vance to Delilah to Abby to Breena and even to Tony who he had never even  _ met _ . Nick every now and then would send a text to let them know he was alive and that was it. 

“Nick!” He heard McGee call through the door. A frustrated sigh was heard. “You know if we all worked together-” 

Nick blocked the rest out, they had tried working together to find her especially in the beginning. But they had lives, even Gibbs who didn’t even realize it. He on the other hand, only had time. There was no Ellie, Lucia and Amanda had moved back to Florida a while ago.

Scratching his growing beard, Nick reached behind him and pressed play on his laptop once more. 

Ellie’s voice filling the room just like always.

_ It wasn’t hard to fall in love with you, Nick. You put up this tough not caring attitude but behind that is someone with one of the biggest hearts I know, you care so deeply for people no matter the walls you try putting up. I first realized I loved you when we looked after Cody. Seeing you with him was more of a slap to the face then almost getting killed, for someone who claimed to not want or really like kids, you were so loving and gentle. That look in your eyes when you looked at him...it shifted something inside me. I got scared, could I really love someone again after Jake and Qasim? Could I give you my heart and trust that you would take care of it? That answer is yes, but I freaked out and backed off trying to date Boyd as a distraction but we both know that didn’t work. That night when I tried making you tell me why you cancelled that date, I could see it all clearly on your face but I wasn’t going to push you even when I think that’s the moment you realized how deep your own feelings went.  _

  
  


Nick stared almost in a trance at his blood swirling in the sink mixing with water as it went down the drain. Pain shooting through his finger didn’t register at all as the water ran over the cut on his hand.

Blood just kept coming. 

Slowly he blinked, coming out of it as he looked down at the deep cut on his hand to the knife sitting on the counter now covered in his blood. Maybe trying to cut things while he was running on little sleep wasn’t the brightest idea. He wasn’t that hungry anyway. 

Stitches. He needed stitches.

With a shrug he walked into the bathroom and grabbed gauze and tape. He didn’t have time to call Jimmy or go to the hospital. It wasn’t as if he’d bleed out. 

Nick wrapped his hand before going back into the spare room. 

_ I remember the night we first kissed, as us and not Charlie and Luis, clearly. I remember the way you gently cupped my face in your hands, the way you hesitated right before our lips touched just in case I wanted to pull away, the way it only took seconds for the simple gentle kiss to turn passionate, all the tension of waiting coming to the surface as your hand tangled in my hair and mine in your shirt as if we were both afraid the other would pull away.  _  
  
  


 

_ The simple fact is, I love you Nick. I don’t...I don’t know what my life would be like without you in it anymore. I just..I feel like I don’t show or tell you how I feel enough so here is me starting to open up. I guess-I guess that’s it for now. I love you. _

Nick let out a big sigh as he opened the door to his apartment, he had just come back from a much needed walk to get some fresh air. 

He stopped short, almost dropping to his knees when he turned the light on.

“Ellie.” He breathed out, shock and awe filling his voice.

Ellie slowly took steps towards him as if she was afraid he’d run the other direction. She looked  _ exactly the same _ . 

Seven months...seven long agonizing months. 

Her hand came up cautiously to run along his face, his facial hair a little longer then what it had been when he returned from his hunt for Vance. Ellie’s eyes looked him over and he knew she was seeing the weight loss, it wasn’t really noticeable, but Ellie knew him more than anyone. Her eyes looked in his, eyes that showed how little he had been sleeping. Her own eyes softened with a look of pain behind them, realization on her face that her being gone had caused it. 

“I’m so sorry.”

Nick let some tears escape hearing her voice. It was so much better in person then a recording. It didn’t matter that he had listened to her voice on that recording many times a day for the past seven months, hearing her voice in person..

“I’m so sorry Nick.” She said again in a whisper, her voice cracking as her eyes watered. 

He said nothing more as he kissed her, she whimpered against him but gripped him tightly. They fit together perfectly just as they always had. 

“I love you.” He whispered against her lips.

“So you’re not mad at me for disappearing like that? For..everything I caused?” 

“No.” He told her honestly. “I should be but..I-I can’t bring myself to be. I just-why Ellie? Where the hell have you been?”

Ellie pulled away from him, but kept her hand tangled in his. 

“I went looking for someone. No one could know where I was, and I just needed to..vanish.” 

Nick gave her a confused look. “What? Looking for who?”

“Me.”

His head snapped to the hallway leading to the rooms in his apartment. 

“She went looking for me, to help me come home.”

Ziva David was standing in his apartment. Her hair a light brown almost blonde, but it was the same woman. Alive and well.


End file.
